


This Body Houses a Soul

by crickets



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-02 05:56:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crickets/pseuds/crickets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>kara wakes up in a cylon basestar and leoben is waiting for her</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Body Houses a Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Words, 700. [Original Post](http://crickets.livejournal.com/99357.html).

Kara doesn't gasp for air. Neither does the frigid, nebulous goo covering her body sting from the cold. Nor do her memories pouring back into her consciousness cause her to writhe in pain.

She remembers Galactica. Her viper diving into that familiar void - the path marked so clearly. She remembers Lee's Mark VII behind her, knowing she had to press onward without him, and finally she remembers calm and nothingness. Her own voice rings in her head. _I am Kara Thrace. I am an officer in the colonial fleet. I am not a cylon._

(Lies. Lies. Lies.)

She's naked and brand new, and Leoben's standing over her, a look of reverence and concern washing over his stubbled face, clouding his hazel eyes. "Welcome home," he says, a slight smile on his lips as he reaches for her slick hand.

She doesn't pull away, instead lets him lead her to the showers. He legs are uneasy but steady - like a newborn calf, on his feet moments after birth. But still, the shock doesn't wear off immediately.

She stands motionless, stark naked, as Leoben scrubs the remnants of the thick and sticky life-giving substance from her body. His hands are rough and calloused, and hers too, she notices. She finds that strange – battle-worn already. It makes no sense. She closes her eyes as the scalding water runs over her back, tries to concentrate on the feel of his fingers over her skin, soft touches and chaste movements. (_This certainly isn't how she dreamed it._ )

"Are you Leoben?" she asks, later, wrapped in a towel, as he fumbles through drawers to find her something to wear. "Where are the others?"

"I'm always Leoben," he explains. His model adopted that name long ago.

"No," she clarifies, "are you _my_ Leoben?"

He goes still at her words, and before he can answer she's behind him, lips grazing his ear, her breath on his neck. "You are, aren't you?"

**+**

She walks the dimly lit corridors of the empty basestar, traces the smooth walls with her fingertips, a trail of dust in their wake, and thinks she must have known from the moment she awoke that they were alone - both bastard deserters of their own kind. (She still thinks of herself as a human.) It had been their purpose to destroy each other. Human versus Cylon. The ultimate battle. Now, _together_, they fight for something else. And the truth is that she knew the moment she drove her viper into the blackness which direction she was headed, no use denying it now.

Kara stares into the blue eyes of the hybrid, streaming prophetic chants falling meaningless from its - no, _her_ \- mouth. She knows she'll never understand a word of it, but somehow it comforts her, much like it comforts Leoben.

"She likes you," he says from behind her, presses to her back, envelops her with his frame. She welcomes it, closes her eyes, drinks in his scent.

"How can you tell?" she asks, leans her head to one side, allowing his lips to graze her neck.

"She talks of peace," he whispers. "The way to Earth. The end of war with man."

Kara doesn't know how he knows this, how he deciphers the hybrid's never-ending riddles. And the truth is, she doesn't care. All she knows is that it resonates deep in her gut like something undeniable, yet inexplicable. All she knows is that she believes it.

And when he takes her back to their quarters and makes love to her like a man does a woman, she doesn't feel like a machine. She feels his hands on her, his lips pressing against hers, hard and needy like in her dreams, his tongue along her spine, his hips against her own, fingers over her clit, and cock hard and full inside her. She clenches sweaty legs around his waist, kisses his eyes, and comes to the hum of their gentle slide through space.

In the end, the only life she remembers is her own back on Caprica, and as he sleeps beside her, she can feel her heart beating in time with his.

_-fin_


End file.
